Gwinnett County passed its annual budget Tuesday but not without some sparks flying.
The $1.33 billion spending plan calls for restoring some emergency service allocations cut in the wake of last year's budget shortfalls. They include adding 58 police positions, opening three fire stations and stabilizing EMS services.
Expenditures also include staffing for the new Hamilton Mill Library north of Dacula without closing any of the county's 14 other neighborhood branches. The library system will receive enough funding to operate all branches about 50 hours a week, as opposed to the current 43 hours.
Recreation is one of the biggest beneficiaries, with funding increasing $9.8 million from last year's $30.4 million allocation.
Capital fund additions include an airport feasibility study, a nuisance abatement project and accelerating the relocation of Fire Station 10 and construction of Fire Station 31.
The County Commission approved a 21 percent increase in the county's portion of property taxes. The measure, passed on a 4-1 vote Dec. 1, will generate more than $70 million in additional revenue on residential real estate this year. District 3 Commissioner Mike Beaudreau cast the only dissenting vote.
Beaudreau dissented again Tuesday, objecting to late modifications made in the spending plan. In particular, he protested shifting $1.2 million in capital improvement funding from Harbins Park southeast of Dacula to Lilburn's Lions Club Park. The money will come from special purpose sales tax revenue.
Harbins, the largest park in Gwinnett County at 1,960 acres, opened in March. Plans called for engineering work to be done this year so that football, soccer and baseball fields could be built, as well as facilities used by the Archer Athletic Association. Instead, the money will be used for improvements at the Lilburn park, which has baseball and football fields.
Beaudreau called the action political payback from Commission Chairman Charles Bannister, who had remarked at the Dec. 1 meeting that there were politicians who voted against tax increases but enjoyed the benefits they provided. He did not mention Beaudreau by name.
"Our kids are not going to be thrown under the bus like this," Beaudreau said after the meeting. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong. And if he's got a problem with me, he can treat me like a big boy. But he shouldn't take it out on the kids."
Rick Sammons with the Archer Athletic Association said he expects more than 1,000 kids will sign up for activities this summer. As it is now, he said, the only organized sports they can accommodate are basketball, cheerleading and limited football.
"I'd like to invite all of these commissioners to come out and explain to kids why they won't have a field," Sammons said.
Bannister said alterations to budgets were common, and no more so than last year when revised revenue figures made it a moving target through July. He also said the 2010 budget is not extravagant but merely restores some core services while providing only those park improvements that will not increase operating costs.
"This board will, occasionally, please most of the people," Bannister said, acknowledging that the budget does not address all campaign pledges to the degree promised. "We really would like to do more, but we can't."
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